Judith Proctor's Journal

I finally figured out how to get my photo from Flickr to appear here.
As you'll probably notice, it gets neater as you go down it. I started on a backstrap loom, made a fair number of mistakes, abandoned it for a while when its original purpose became obsolete, bought a cheap inkle loom, finished it off and was very pleased with the even tension and increased ease of weaving (and far less back ache) achieved on the inkle loom.

I like to carry my reading glasses in a small pouch on a cord over my shoulder.  Reduces the rate at which I lose them...

The old embroidered pouch is totally worn out, so I'm aiming to tablet weave a new one.

 This post is partly making notes for myself so that I don't forget what I'm doing...

On the last tablet weaving project I did using cotton yarn, four cards worth of yarn led to 1cm width in the final result.

Therefore, I need 28 cards to make a glasses pouch 7 cm wide.

The case needs a length of 15.5cm  x 2 (front and back), so 31cm, plus about 34cm wastage at the ends (turning space for the cards, shed for the shuttle, knotting onto holder, twist space, etc.)

That means I need 65cm for each warp thread and a total of 28 x 4 = 112 warp threads.

I'm going to attempt a pattern style called 'Egyptian diamonds', which is a two colour pattern plus a warp-twined border.  So, that will be 4 cards (with 4 warp threads each) for the warp twined border (black), leaving 96 cards of pattern. Half of 96 is 48, so in total, I'll need 48 magenta and 48 + 16 = 54 black.

I'm not sure if anyone other than La Avispa will follow all that, but see my earlier posts on tablet weaving if you want to know how to do it.

The aim, is to make a diamond pattern, but with rounded corners rather than sharp angles.

I'm going to try threading the tablets a different way this time.  I'll take photos for La Avispa.  If it works, it may save her some effort on future projects.

 I've done the video, but the sound quality (as always) is very poor, so I'm adding subtitles. It's a slow process, but I'm half way through.

When I finally get there, you'll be able to weave anything from space invaders to alphabets (provided you buy/design the pattern you desire).

Look at what la avispa has done with her latest belt - she's woven it straight onto a buckle, which is a brilliant idea.


The tablet weaving I've shown you so far had all the cards threaded the same way at the start.  It didn't matter which way, as long as they were all the same - though if you flipped some of the cards part way through, you effectively reversed the threading direction.

Now, I'm going to show you a simple repeating pattern in which the cards are threaded diffently from the start.

If you look at the hatband below (modelled by my lovely husband), you'll see that the 'stitch' direction is symmetrical across the middle of the band and that 's due to the cards being threaded in opposite directions.

You'll also notice, if you look carefully, a 'v' patter along each edge.  This is known as a 'warp-twined border' and gives a neat edge that helps the completed band to lie flat.



Now, we have to introduce a few technical terms:

Looking at the diagram below, you'll see the letters ABCD down one side.  These letters represent holes in an individual card.  The numbers represent the number of the card in the pack.


Remember this playing card from way back at the beginning of my tablet weaving discussions?  If we look at the chart, we can see that for this pattern, card 4 has black thread in hole A, white in hole B, black in hole C and white in hole D. (In my case, black and white became purple and lilac)  there are a total of 40 dark and 24 light threads (4 x 16 in total)

Some people label the holes clockwise, some anticlockwise.  Most times it won't make any difference as the pattern will just come out reversed and you're pretty much bound to reverse the direction sometime during the weaving in any case, (but if you're doing a really complicated pattern from a chart, you may want to check.)

Now, you may have noticed the little arrows below the chart.  These are important and potentially very confusing.


Here, we have to talk about S and Z threading.

Imagine you have the cards all threaded and the warp threads tied to your belt ready to start weaving, now, visualise one of the cards.  The threads will enter a hole on one side of the card and come out the other side.  Look down on your cards from above and think of the direction of the central stroke in a capital S and Z and compare with the slant of the thread in the diagram.
The left-hand card is S-threaded and the right hand card is Z-threaded.

Some people use the terms left and right when talking about threading directions. I find this incredibly confusing as it all depends on how you visualise the terms.  (I visualised them the opposite way to the writer of the first book I read and I still rely on my pencil notes in the margin of the book to remember what she actually means.)

I suggest you convert all references to right and left threading to S-threading and Z-threading.

An arrow -> like card 1 in the threading diagram will be called left to right, but is acutally Z-threaded.

An arrow on a threading diagram like <- in the diagram above for cards 2-8, often refered to as being threaded right to left is actually S-threaded.

You'll notice that the edge card is threaded the opposite way to the one next to it. That's how you do the warp-twined border.

To carry out this pattern, you simply thread the cards, start turning the pack forward, and keep turning it forward with a shuttle pass on every turn.  When you've either got the length you desire, or have too much twist to carry on (more likely the latter), then change direction and turn backwards until you have as much twist as you can handle, etc.

The warp-twined border will look after itself.

NOTE - in patterns with frequent changes of direction, the warp-twined border will need different handling.  I'll deal with this when I move onto double-faced weaving.  Double-faced weaving is not suitable for a first project in tablet-weaving, but it is very versatile and can be used to weave anything from space invaders to alphabets.

NOW- why not try either the pattern above, or play with some squared paper and see what designs you can come up with yourself.  You can use as many different colours as you like and you can use any width of band (within reason), but you only have four rows to create your pattern in.

 We have a couple of completed projects now.

See la avispa  for a really lovely zig zag.  (She's got some good suggestions which are well worth reading on attaching the ends and I love her idea of attaching warp threads directly to a belt buckle)

and a diamond weave from Patsy Rose.  Patsy was the one with the idea of using plastic bag clips, and she's also improvised a clothes peg as a shuttle.

The joy of this particular loom set up is that you can get a lot of variations on the pattern with very little effort.  It's a great way of getting a good feeling for tablet weaving and the possibilities it offers.

I'll be doing a space invaders pattern soon.   That one's a lot more difficult.  It uses a similar card set up, but a different technique on the card turns.  I'm happy to post instructions and a video if people want to see it.  If you try it, expect to make some mistakes in the early part of the weave and allow extra length so you can keep going.  (Trying to undo more than one or two rows will drive you insane)

I can also post some set ups for other simple patterns if requested.

I can also explain what a warp-twined border is and why you might want to use one.  They're fairly straight-forward - and you'd need to learn that if you want to attempt the space invaders design.

  I finished my band for the Mystery Tablet Weave, so I thought I'd let you all see how it came out.

This is the bit you’ll see in the video.

This is where I started doing freeform and experimented with different pattern repeats.

 
You'll notice the warp threads on the far side of the cards becoming twisted.  Don't worry about this, it is normal, and we'll be doing something to unwind them later. 

 These may come in handy for holding ends of the warp threads.  I haven't used them myself yet, but they'll certainly do for short term use and may well have the strength for the actual weaving.  I may try some experiments in a day or two.

 

Here's a reminder of what you need for the mystery tablet-weaving project.  The project will assume no previous knowledge and I'll stop and take questions of help people sort out problems at any point. All are welcome to join in.  I'll post the first instructions after Easter as several interested parties are away over the long weekend.




All you need to join in is a ruler, an old pack of cards, a pencil, a bit of string, a leather belt, a hole punch, a pair of paper scissors, sewing scissors, some yarn of any dark colour (I'm using black so you can clearly see what I'm doing, but any colour will do), some light yarn (anything will do as long as it is the same thickness as the dark yarn). Optional: left over yarn that you really hate and want to use up almost invisibly (that's the black ball at the bottom in my case)  You can just as easily use your 'dark' yarn.
You won't need a whole ball of anything, or even half a ball. This is a good project for using up left over odd bits of wool. It doesn't really matter if your 'dark' yarn is half red and half navy, or if your 'light' is part pink and part yellow. As long as you like the colour combination and there's a reasonable dark/light contrast.

Collect up your bits and I'll post the first instructions after Easter is over.
Anyone can join in, and I'll try and help if you hit problems.

This project will make a woven strip suitable for a bookmark. If you want to make a longer strip for a hat band or belt, I'll explain how to do that at the start.

 I've been crafting in my spare time.

Making hat bands for morris hats is a nice way of having small projects for me to try out techniques.

Here's the crochet hat band (worn by me):



And the tablet woven hat band (modelled by my husband, Richard, who isn't actually a morris man, but really looks the part):




I may post more about tablet weaving. It's an interesting technique and needs very little in the way of equipment.  Namely: a pack of playing cards, scissors, a ruler and a hole punch, plus yarn.  A strong belt, a shuttle  and a small clamp are handy, but not essential.